


The Only Thing

by spatialvoid



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-03-03
Packaged: 2018-09-26 11:49:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9895229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spatialvoid/pseuds/spatialvoid
Summary: Rory had the summer after she graduated from Yale all planned out: she'd nurse her post-breakup wounds, reenact her graduation, and then set off with her mother to ride as many rollercoasters as their stomachs could handle. Everything was set in motion.Then Paris showed up.AU after S7E21 "Unto the Breach".





	1. Unto the Breach

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [_The Only Thing_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adKEqin5SoI) by Sufjan Stevens.

Lorelai set a bowl of cheese puffs down on the coffee table and then sat down on the couch, leaning back and squishing around. She looked up at Rory. “I think the graduation party was a hit. We really outdid ourselves with this one - I mean, a marching band? More Founder’s Day Punch than I would have previously thought possible to consume? Taylor trying to have Kirk arrested for breaking into the Soda Shoppe? _Definitely_ a recipe for success.”

“It was a recipe for something, that’s for sure,” replied Rory. What exactly that something _was_ , well, she still wasn’t quite certain.

Rory remembered donning her cap and gown and crossing the makeshift podium Luke had built while the Stars Hollow High band played _Pomp and Circumstance_ , but the rest of the party was a blur. She knew that Babette had gotten wasted and gone around trying to french-braid the hair of everyone with hair long enough for french-braiding: Rory’s head still bore the (surprisingly neat) results of that drunken escapade. Taylor, similarly afflicted, had spent the latter half of the party belting ABBA songs, a capella, from memory, with a remarkable amount of encouragement from Miss Patty. Lorelai herself had just flat-out disappeared, something that would have concerned Rory had she not also been unable to locate Luke.

“It was a nice something, though.” Lorelai peered at Rory through her glasses. “At least, I thought it was a nice something. Didn’t you? Because if you didn’t think it was a nice something, I want my money back.”

Rory sat down next to her mother and touched her hand in an attempt at reassurance. “Don’t worry. I thought it was a nice something.”

“Good.”

It _had_ been nice, in a sad sort of way: it had felt too much like an ending to be nice in any other sense. Rory felt as though the party had only further affirmed the fact that she was now entering a world that existed entirely outside of the comforting bounds of formal education. The whole time that it was going on, she had felt like she was teetering on the edge of a precipice. What was it Paris had said at graduation? “Unto the breach”? The party had felt like the last rite of passage before Rory crossed unto the breach. Now, she was in it.

Her mother touched her arm. “You all right, babe?”

Maybe it was the punch. “Sure,” she said. “Fine. Yes. Just a little fuzzy-headed, you know. Hungover.” She looked at the TV. “Should we start the movie?”

“In a sec,” Lorelai responded, looking at the TV and then back again at Rory. “I want to tell you something, first, and I want you to answer me honestly when I ask you what you think, because you know there’s no opinion I value more than yours.”

Rory assumed this had something to do with her mother’s disappearance during the party: Lorelai was beaming, her blue eyes alight with something Rory hadn’t seen in a long time. Too long. “Okay, shoot.”

“Well, last night,” began Lorelai, actually beaming now, the lines of her face interrupted by a grin so joyous and hopeful that it turned the corners of Rory’s own mouth. She seemed to be thinking, and then she said, “You know what, I’ll just get right to it.” She paused and took a deep breath, her eyes continuing to smile even as her mouth ceased to. “Luke and I are back together.”

At the confirmation of her suspicions, Rory felt a strange mix of joy and caution: joy rooted in her mother’s apparent happiness, caution rooted in the fear of once again having to watch that happiness drift away. She didn’t immediately respond.

“I’m having trouble gauging your response, here,” prodded Lorelai. “Give me something. What do you think?”

“I think… that this is good,” Rory said, well aware that the caution she felt was apparent in her tone. “I mean, you love Luke, and Luke loves you, so you should be together, no matter what, you know, since you love each other.”

Lorelai reached over and squeezed her hand. “I know what you’re thinking,” she told Rory, “and it’s justified, given our track record. It really is. We are definitely legitimately concerned about repeating the past, but we had a good talk last night after the party - ”

“ _During_ the party,” interrupted Rory with a raise of her eyebrow.

Her mother rolled her eyes. “ _During_ the party,” she amended, “and I think it’s gonna be okay. _We_ think it’s gonna be okay. And we’re going to make a concerted effort to talk each other’s ears off, since that was the whole problem to begin with: the _not_ talking.”

Rory felt calm wash over her. “Okay,” she said. That was good enough for her. “Then I’m happy.” She smiled at her mother. “Really, truly happy. I love Luke, you know that.”

Lorelai gave her a fond smile. “I know, kid, and I’m really glad you feel that way.”

Rory returned her mother’s smile, then picked up the remote and pointed it at the TV. “You ready for the movie marathon now?”

“I was born ready,” Lorelai said, filling her mouth with cheese puffs.

Halfway through the first movie, the doorbell rang.

Lorelai paused the TV. “I don’t know who that is at the door, but they interrupted our flow, and so now I’m mad as hell.” She crossed her arms, pouting. “You don’t interrupt _The Princess Bride_! It just isn’t done!” She looked at Rory pleadingly. “Can you get up and see who that is?”

Rory swung her legs down off of the sofa and stood. “As you wish.” She turned to look at her mother as she walked to the front door. “It’s probably just the mail. I ordered a bunch of books for our road trip.”

“No post on Sundays.”

“Well, maybe it’s Luke, then,” Rory said, opening the front door. “Oh. You are… definitely not Luke.”

“Rory,” said Paris, nodding her head in acknowledgement. Her hair was pulled back from her face by a headband made from a folded bandanna; she had a hefty-looking hiking backpack by her side; she looked travel-weary and drained. “Hi. Way to state the obvious.”

“Paris,” Rory said. She couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away from Paris’s face. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s a long story,” Paris said wearily. “Can I come in?”

Paris looked exhausted, Rory thought. She hadn’t even been sure that Paris was _capable_ of looking exhausted. She did, though: there were dark circles under her makeup-less eyes, her arms hung limply at her sides, and she wobbled a little on her feet, like she’d either been walking too much or sitting for too long.

“Rory,” Paris repeated, “can I please come in?”

Rory blinked, motioning for Paris to come inside. “Yeah. Yeah, come in.” She nodded at Paris’s backpack. “Do you want me to get that?”

Paris hoisted the pack onto her shoulders with a remarkably practiced ease. “No, I’ve got it.”

She led Paris into the living room. “Uh, Mom?”

Lorelai had begun flipping through a magazine. “Yeah? Who was it at the door?”

“Paris is here.”

“I thought Paris was in India with Doyle,” said Lorelai, not looking up. “You know: yoga, chai, vindaloo. Oh, apparently Luke started drinking chai while we were apart - do you think you could sweet-talk her into bringing back some of the real deal for him? He’s been trying to talk me into doing yoga with him, too, but I still don’t think I’m over The Great Leg Break of ‘97. Yoga pants are as yoga as it’s gonna get for me.”

“I’m not in India with Doyle,” spat Paris, putting extra emphasis on his name. “I’m in Stars Hollow with the Lorelais Gilmore. I dumped that human version of a male anglerfish three days ago and took the first flight home I could get.”

Lorelai turned around, startled. “Paris _is_ here.” And then: “You broke up with Doyle?”

“God, yes.” Paris sounded relieved. “I mean, I tried to break up with him weeks ago, but he wouldn’t have it and, I don’t know, I guess I liked the idea of not having to face the future by myself. But two weeks alone together in a foreign country can tell you a lot about a person, and the past two weeks have told me that Doyle is an intolerable human being.”

“I’m sorry,” Rory said, although she didn’t feel particularly so. Doyle and Paris had never seemed quite right together to her, like two puzzle pieces whose edges fit together but whose pictures didn’t match up.

“Are you kidding?” Paris took off her backpack and leaned it up against the back of the sofa. “I mean, I’m sad, we were together for a while, but mostly I’m just relieved. Men are exhausting.”

“I’m not gonna disagree with that.” Rory wondered what Logan was doing right at that moment. Was he in California? Did he miss her? She missed him. If she focused hard enough, she could still feel the weight of the ring box in her hand. When she unfocused, the weight was gone, but she felt like something was missing without it.

“They can also be pretty great,” added Lorelai. “I mean, not to say that I haven’t had bad experiences with men - a _lot_ of bad experiences, actually - but, you know, _sometimes_ , they can be all right.”

“Says the woman who’s got that ‘I just had really great sex’ glow,” Paris muttered.

Lorelai looked miffed. “I don’t even know how to begin to respond to that.”

“Then don’t,” Rory said to her mother. She turned to Paris. “So, do you want to stay for dinner?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot take credit for "human version of a male anglerfish". The credit goes to Mallory Ortberg, who described Doyle as such in a piece for The Toast entitled [_Femslash Friday: Rory and Paris, The Real Gilmore Girls_](http://the-toast.net/2013/12/13/femslash-friday-rory-and-paris/). (As an aside: this piece is a work of art. Read it and ~~weep~~ laugh.)


	2. When the Dog Bites, When the Bee Stings

“This Chinese food,” Paris told Rory, “is _terrible_. This is the worst Chinese food I’ve ever had.”

Rory raised her chopsticks in agreement. “That’s Al’s Pancake World for ya.”

“It’s terrible,” Lorelai acknowledged, “but there’s something so perfect about its terribleness. It’s just terrible enough to make you want to eat more of it, in the hopes that maybe it’ll get less terrible the more of it you eat.”

Paris looked confused. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

Lorelai shrugged. “Maybe not, but you’re still eating it, aren’t you?”

Paris tilted her head like she was considering what Lorelai had said while picking up a piece of chicken with her chopsticks. “Good point.”

Paris had been at the Gilmore house for the better part of an hour, and still hadn’t divulged why she was in Stars Hollow, of all the places to be. Rory was desperate to find out. She suspected that her mother was, too, but Lorelai seemed to be taking the side of tactfulness and hadn’t yet prodded Paris for answers.

She wasn’t that patient.

“So, Paris,” she began, “what exactly brought you to Stars Hollow? Why not, oh, New Haven or, you know, Cambridge?”

Paris finished chewing before she spoke, leaving a too-long silence that stretched out awkwardly between them. “Well,” she said finally, “the lease is up on our apartment in New Haven, and I wasn’t planning on apartment-hunting in Cambridge until August. I might do that sooner, now, but I still needed somewhere to go once I got off the plane in New York.” She locked eyes with Rory. “You were the first person to come to mind.”

Rory felt her cheeks redden, though she wasn’t really sure why. It was _Paris_ , for heaven’s sake. “Well, that’s - you know you’re always welcome.” She swallowed. “Don’t you?”

Paris was still maintaining eye contact. “I know.”

Rory felt herself nod. “Well. Good. That’s good. I’m glad.”

Lorelai cleared her throat and looked at Paris. “So, do you… do you have anywhere else to go? Do you need to stay here for a few days while you get back on your feet? You’re welcome to stay if you need to, we’ve got a couch, or the trundle in Rory’s room, whichever you’d prefer.”

Paris looked up at Lorelai, the tense line that had furrowed her forehead for the majority of the evening suddenly gone. “Could I? Just for a few days, a week or two at most? Until I can find an apartment in Cambridge?”

Lorelai nodded, though Rory thought she looked kind of pained at the thought. “Sure. Yeah. Why not?”

“We’re going out of town next weekend,” added Rory, “but you can absolutely stay until then, if, you know, you need to.”

Paris looked extra-relieved. “Oh, good. I mean, I figured that was probably what you would say, but I wasn’t a hundred percent positive, and, to be honest, I wasn’t totally sure of the feasibility of my contingency plan, either.”

Lorelai’s eyes widened a little bit. “You had a contingency plan?”

“I always have a contingency plan. Don’t you? Doesn’t everyone?”

“Not… usually.”

“Huh,” said Paris, chewing thoughtfully. “That seems kind of irresponsible to me.”

“Says the person who once melted down on national television,” retorted Lorelai.

Paris scowled. “We don’t talk about C-SPAN.”

In an effort to relieve some of the sudden tension, Rory spoke. “What _was_ your contingency plan?” she asked Paris.

Paris rolled her eyes. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

The phone began ringing from the other room. Lorelai pushed her chair back and stood, walking into the living room to go answer it.

“So she and the guy from the diner are back together again, huh?” Paris set an empty takeout container down on the table and picked up another, scooping rice into her mouth. “Interesting.”

“Interesting? How so?”

“Well, I really should have expected it after the fiasco, no offense, that was her marriage to your father, but it still surprises me that they resumed their relationship so soon after the finalization of your parents’ divorce.”

“The thing with my parents was just… a blip in the radar. It wasn’t supposed to happen.” Rory twirled lo mein around her chopsticks. “It’s not… I think Mom would like to forget it ever happened at all.”

Paris looked up from her food. “Do you wish you could forget everything with Logan?”

Sometimes. But…. “No.” She shook her head. “I don’t.” She looked at Paris. “Do you wish… with Doyle?”

Paris shook her head. “No. Not really.” She inhaled sharply. “It hurts like hell right now, but I’d rather not forget the whole thing.”

Before Rory could respond, Lorelai walked back into the kitchen. She gripped the strap of her purse with one hand, her cell phone in the other. She gestured toward the front door. “I’m gonna go over to Luke’s, so you two have the place to yourself tonight. Don’t start any fires or do anything dumb. I mean, you’re adults, I’m sure you’ll be fine, but I’m still your mom, so I have to say something along those lines.”

Rory smiled at her mother. “Have fun.”

“Oh, believe me, I will.”

“Ugh, too much information.”

Lorelai winced. “Sorry, babe. I’m leaving now,” she said, walking out of the kitchen. “See you later!”

Once the front door clicked shut, Paris turned to Rory. “That was quite the vote of confidence. _‘Don’t start any fires or do anything dumb.’_ ”

“She doesn’t think we will,” said Rory, getting up and opening the fridge in order to put away the uneaten Chinese food. “She just feels like she has to say something, just in case. I think it’s a parent thing.”

A shadow seemed to cross Paris’s face. “My parents have never said anything like that to me.”

Rory raised her eyebrows. “Not even, like, ‘be sure to drive safe’?”

Paris shook her head. “Nope.”

Closing the fridge and sitting back down, Rory said, “Huh. I just thought -”

“That that was one of those things that all parents did? Yeah, no. It’s not.”

“I’m sorry.”

Paris shrugged. “It is what it is.”

“Still,” said Rory, “it shouldn’t be.”

“No, it shouldn’t,” conceded Paris. “But it is. You can’t change that.”

Rory sighed, looking anywhere but at Paris. “So. We’ve eaten. What now?”

“Can I use your washing machine?” Paris gestured to her hiking backpack, which was leaned up against the doorframe of Rory’s room. “Backpacking isn’t exactly conducive to frequent laundering. Which, come to think of it, is probably one of the many reasons why two weeks of it was more than enough for me.”

“Sure.” Rory thought for a moment. “Do you want to watch a movie or something while you’re doing that?”

“Okay,” said Paris. “Just give me a minute to sort and get a load started.”

“Soap’s on the shelf above the dryer. Fabric softener, too.”

Paris pushed her chair back and stood. “Thanks. It’ll just take a minute, provided your washing machine isn’t too complicated.”

“It’s about a thousand years old,” replied Rory, “it’s not complicated at all.” She jerked a thumb toward the living room. “I’ll be in the living room, when you’re done.”

She was sitting on the floor in front of the TV, sifting through a stack of DVDs and VHS tapes, when Paris reappeared.

“It wasn’t uncomplicated,” Paris stated. “What are we watching?”

Rory looked up. “Oh. Sorry about that. Did you figure it out?” Paris nodded. “Okay, good. And to answer your question: I can’t decide. Any ideas?”

“Not a clue. Besides, I don’t even know what you’ve got.”

Rory patted the floor next to her. “Well, come look. Help me out over here.”

Paris sat. “I don’t even know where to start.”

It _was_ a lot of movies. Rory pushed a stack of tapes in front of her. “Well, start somewhere. Don’t take it too seriously, though. Actually, don’t take it seriously at all.”

She looked skeptical. “If you say so.” She picked up a movie: _Roman Holiday._

Rory tilted her head from side-to-side appraisingly. “Solid choice. Audrey Hepburn, Gregory Peck. Definitely a classic.”

“Atticus Finch?”

“Yeah.”

Paris picked up another movie. “What about this one? I liked the book, but I’m always really skeptical of book-to-movie adaptations, though there is something to be said for viewing someone else’s interpretation of a text.”

Rory looked. “Pretty good as far as book-to-movie adaptations go, actually.” She picked up a stack of DVDs and handed them to Paris. “Or there’s these?”

Paris looked skeptical. “I don’t like Tolkien. Too much religious imagery.”

“Says the Joseph Campbell fanatic.”

“Shut up.”

“Okay, no _Lord of the Rings_ . What about _Pride and Prejudice_?”

Paris shrugged. “Any other Austen adaptations?”

“Dozens,” Rory said, smiling. “Where do you want to start?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They're slowly meandering their way toward... something. What that is, exactly, I can't tell you yet.


End file.
